Wishing a very happy publication day to Marcus Sedgwick, who's celebrating a double whammy - his beautiful book Snow is released today from publisher, Little Toller and his Young Adult novel, Saint Death is published by Orion Children's Books.

Of all weathers, snow is the one that has always affected Marcus Sedgwick the most. While many people’s idea of the ideal holiday involves sun, sea and sand, he makes trips to cold and snowy parts of the world: Russia, Scandinavia, the Arctic Circle. Five years ago, he and his partner bought a mountain house, an old chalet d’alpage high in the Haute Savoie, and for the first time he started to truly understand what it is to live in an environment where extreme amounts of snow are frequent.

Like the six sides of a snowflake, the book has six chapters which explore the art, literature and science of snow, as well as Marcus Sedgwick’s own experiences and memories, asking whether it really did snow more during his boyhood in Kent and whether changing climate patterns might mean snow becomes a thing of the past for many of us. He also wonders why snow is so powerful to our imagination, so transformative, and as fundamental as our response to darkness and sunlight.

Anapra is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Mexican city of Juarez - twenty metres outside town lies a fence, and beyond it, America - the dangerous goal of many a migrant. Faustino is one such trying to escape from the gang he's been working for. He's dipped into a pile of dollars he was supposed to be hiding and now he's on the run. He and his friend, Arturo, have only 36 hours to replace the missing money, or they're as good as dead.

Watching over them is Saint Death. Saint Death (or Santissima Muerte) - she of pure bone and charcoal-black eye, she of absolute loyalty and neutral morality, holy patron to rich and poor, to prostitute and narco-lord, criminal and police-chief. A folk saint, a rebel angel, a sinister guardian.